playblast: unable to create video track - Quicktime

[magillaGuerilla]

despite playblasting Quicktimes all year, today Maya decided it doesn't want to make Quicktimes any more

playblast -format qt -filename "P:/Playblasts/Sh129_BTL_020_v014.mov" -fp 4 -percent 100 -compression "MPEG-4 Video" -quality 70;
// Error: line 0: Unable to create video track. Check format. //

Personally I prefer avi but client's react like you're speaking Swahili when you send them avi's

Any ideas?

[magillaGuerilla]

thanks once again for moving this post FOR NO REASON to another forum.

Would you care to explain why you feel it necessary to move it at all - rather than maybe do something useful like suggest an answer?

[jordan.giboney]

Hi @magillaGuerilla

Thanks for posting! Not sure why your post was moved, but I will be happy to help 🙂

You should be able to restore the H.264 playblast option with the following steps:

1. Download Quicktime Player into your Applications folder. 
2. Start Maya, then go to: Windows > Setting and Preferences > Preferences 
3. At the very bottom of the list on the left side of the Preferences window, click on Applications.
4. Under the Sequence Viewing Applications, click on the folder in the Image Sequence line and navigate to the quicktime player
5. Press open. The path should populate in the Image Sequence line.
6. Press save

H264 should now be an option in your Playblast Options.

Let me know if that works for you 🙂 If not, I would be happy to continue working with you until we figure it out.

[magillaGuerilla]

Hi Jordan, thanks for the reply

I already had the playback sorted, avi's open with vlc and quicktimes with qtplayer, it seems this was due to a bad graphics driver update. Rolled back and all is working now.

[jordan.giboney]

Hi @magillaGuerilla!

Thanks for the update! Glad to hear things are back up and running.

Would you mind posting your graphics card and driver number? I'd love to document this internally, and it would be great to have the answer available here for other community members who are having the same problem 🙂

Thanks again!

[magillaGuerilla · Accepted solution]

I was running nVidia quadro 4000 - driver 21.21.13.7711

I ran an update from the device manager which "updated" it to 9.18.13.1166

I rolled back to driver 21.21.13.7711

[Michael_Todd]

You can often get that error when using quicktime on windows if the playblast video is open in a player when you try to record another playblast using the same name. Closing the open video allows the recording to go ahead. Windows doesn't like to save over files that are open in other apps.

Cheers

[magillaGuerilla]

yep, that old chestnut gets me every time, like having the playblasts open in a video editor whilst trying to overwrite the file. But in this case it was Windows 'updating' my driver to something from 2014. I always manually update drivers, but in this instance I ran the update from the 'manage devices' window to solve some Golaem related weirdness and it wasn't until a few days later I experienced the Quicktime problem so I didn't immediately put two and two together.

[Anonymous]

I know this is an older thread and I apologize for the necro posting. I had this issue and none of the solutions in this thread solved it for me but it's still the top search result. I just wanted to thank Steve and Mikael for posting the solution that worked for me in a more obscure spot:

I had not recently updated drivers or made any other changes. Deleting preferences didn't work. Apparently I had a rogue Quicktime process that needed to be forcefully ended. I found quicktimeShim.exe in my task manager, ended the task and was able to make a new playblast immediately. 

Thank you, Mikael and Steve! 

[Anonymous]

Wow! your suggestion of deleting "quicktimeShim.exe" manualy from my task manager was big hit!. You saved me from so many frustrating time. Playblast worked fine after this. Thanks

[Anonymous]

My playblast doesnt work I need help with this situation because my error says "unable to create a video. check format."

[agnisen07]

Hi, not sure if it applies for all instances of this error, but there is a quick fix for this - Go to Task Manager and under Services, end the task quicktimeshim.exe.
That does the work for me all the time.

[ericsencer]

Thank you so much, had the same issue...and you were right had QT going rogue in my task manager.  You saved my day!

[rosskeFNALB]

the task manager fix, fixed mine too! Thanks

[csweaver7JPCF]

even a year later this post saved me from crying after hour two trying to fix this problem. Thank you so much!

[milan_salmona]

You saved me so many time rebooting my computer wondering WHY?
Thanks

[andyburbuja]

this is the solution!!!!, thank you so much

[srikanth.sFRNXR]

I was facing the same issue // Error: line 1: Unable to create a video track. Check format.

No quicktimeshim.exe. running on my task manager.

I also got this error: // Error: Unable to create a movie file. It may be open by another application. while taking Playblast in AVI format. This error came on the first try only.

Need your help to resolve this issue.

[srikanth.sFRNXR]

I attempted to resolve the Playblast issue by deleting old preferences and clearing items, but this did not solve the problem.


I hope the information below will be helpful.

1. This issue occurs only with Maya 2024, I was able to successfully take Playblast in Maya 2020.

2. Playblast functions correctly when launching Maya 2024 from the ShotGrid desktop app, but it fails when using the default Maya 2024 application.